


Tandem Hearts

by the_nature_of_roses_and_rocks



Category: Sex Education (TV)
Genre: F/M, still love them, that's all, very much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 13:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17468873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_nature_of_roses_and_rocks/pseuds/the_nature_of_roses_and_rocks
Summary: They reveal themselves to each other, bit by bit, haltingly, each scared the other will run away.





	Tandem Hearts

Looking back, Otis doesn’t know when he first saw her. When her name and face and general brilliance flew together in his head. Maeve. 

That’s the thing about grade school, right? Everyone knows everyone else or feels like they do and it’s easier to take the cloud of rumors surrounding a classmate at face value than talk to them.

Looking back, he’ll see the pattern, berate himself for letting other people sweep him up on a wave of unfair assumptions about her. Looking back, he fell in love with this fierce, terrified, incredibly smart, stunning girl the somewhere in their first moments together. As it turns out, realizing you love someone is much harder than the falling. “It’s a process,” Maeve likes to say. “It’s all a process.”

He thinks about the beginning a lot actually, their opening stanzas. Together they are a messy amalgamation of strength and broken pieces and laughter and long talks and thinking the same thing at different times and mistakes. They always come back from the mistakes.

Scenes flash through his mind at night. The first day, talking Adam’s dick down. Running a “clinic” and trying their best to help people, even if they were grasping at straws. The first time he was in her trailer, after the brother left, again. Taking in her life, the detritus of existence, her quiet “are you going to leave now” face. He didn’t leave. He’s there when her scholarships start pouring in, when every option makes itself available. She waits for him and Ola to run their course. He never gets his sweater back, she never lets it go. 

They reveal themselves to each other, bit by bit, haltingly, each scared the other will run away. Every piece of the mask that falls away brings them closer together. They aren’t dating yet, but winter of their senior year she’s studying on his bed (her house doesn’t have much heat during the bitterest January days) and Maeve’s lips move in tandem with her eyes as they scan the book she’s reading. She leans into Otis’s arm and something in him swells or breaks. (it does every time he so much as looks at her. He loves her, he knows that now, but how much weight is safe to put on this thing they share?) She looks up at him, “What?” “Nothing. You just make me really happy.” She ducks her head and flips a page. He can sense her smile. 

A few weeks later they’re behind the school, he’s just finished with a client. He tells her the day’s horror stories (potentially embellished but only to make her laugh) She shrieks with laughter and quips something dry and perfect. Suddenly they’re kissing (after so long. SO LONG. If his life has a purpose this might be it. Eliciting joy from a limitless, fragile human for as long as she’ll let him.) and it’s so much more than he’s ever imagined and everything is ok. For both of them. He could probably touch the stars right now, reach up and pluck one from the sky, but that would mean breaking away from THIS magical impossibility and- Maeve tugs on his lower lip (with her MOUTH) and all rational thought escapes him. 

Maybe fairy-tale-happily-ever-after-romance exists. Maybe it doesn’t. Neither of them has really experienced a life that fosters a belief in true love. Still. When Otis gets tired he cries over kitten pictures and Maeve only smiles when she means it. They have a lifetime to spend learning and living and surprising each other. If someone makes you happier or safer or kinder than previously seemed possible . . . why wouldn’t you want to hang out forever.


End file.
